Media workers are having to get a bus out of the Celtic Manor to pick up another one to get to their hotels. Some British journalists caught up in problems at the summit coined the hashtag #Natoshambles on Twitter.

Nick Miller, Europe correspondent at the Australian firm Fairfax Media, said he finished work at Celtic Manor about 8pm and went to the car park to wait for the bus to the official media reception in Newport, taking place at Tredegar House.

“Almost an hour later a couple of buses turn up, not going to the reception, just down the hill to the Hilton. By now there are hundreds of journalists behind me. Some furious, some amused, most of them tweeting,” he said.

“I got on the bus with heaps of people still behind me. Down at the Hilton, with two colleagues I got on a bus that one of the officials told us was going to Newport. Close enough we thought, we can grab a taxi.

“We ended up in a dimly lit car park outside Bristol.”

He managed to get another bus to a park and ride site, and was offered a lift by another journalist who was also put on the wrong bus.

He said he finally got to the reception “two hours after we had finished work”.

“Thankfully there was still plenty of booze and food being served because we were starving. We just missed the orchestra. First World problems, right?”

He said one Aussie colleague left the summit venue at 11.30pm on Thursday, “got on a bus which she was told was going to her hotel in Cardiff, then the bus ended up at a completely different hotel in Cardiff”.

“He told her to call a taxi. She had no idea where she was,” he said.

Michael Abrams, a photographer with US military newspaper Stars and Stripes, said he waited 45 minutes on Friday morning for a bus from the Park Inn, in Cardiff.

“My time could have been put to better use,” he said.

“It’s a little bit frustrating when you wait 15 minutes and wait another 15 minutes, when its meant to come every 15 minutes – that’s what the schedule was.”

He said he had reckoned that the security around the event is one of the likely issues, but didn’t think it would leave a bad taste in the mouth with journalists.

“Everybody will be complaining today - the next time they go to one they will be complaining again,” he said.

“I think its no worse organised they any other Nato summits I have been to.”

Tom Newton Dunn of the Sun quipped that Thursday night’s issues amounted to the “battle of Newport: 100s of angry euro media close to rioting over no buses for an hour out of #NATOSummitUK.”

“Brit hacks remaining stoic,” he said on Twitter.

A UK Government spokeswoman said: “There was a significant delay in being able to transport media from the Summit venue last night. We apologise to all those that were inconvenienced."

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